Bates confident Leeds can be a ‘big club’ but doubts still surround future

KEN BATES has insisted that Leeds have been given “a clean start” after his consortium bought the troubled League One club — but doubts remain over the club’s Football League future.

The Elland Road club were put up for sale on Friday by administrators KPMG after the Inland Revenue launched a legal challenge to Bates’ original plans to buy back the club from administration.

And former Chelsea chairman Bates is looking forward to taking the club forward as they prepare for their first ever season outside of the top two divisions after KPMG agreed to sell United to Bates yesterday.

He claimed: “It’s a sense of achievement and a challenge.

“Leeds were in a mess when we took over — the Peter Ridsdale era and the last board were incompetent. But now we’ve got a clean start and a clean sheet of paper. It’s a big club — it’s not at the moment but it will be — and we can take it forward.

“And part of the reason why we’re going to succeed is because these Leeds fans are absolutely magnificent.

“99% of the letters and e-mails are supporting us and that’s not bad. That’s as good as Saddam Hussein did and he was fiddling the figures.”

Bates admitted the chaos surrounding the club’s future had prevented manager Dennis Wise signing players as he prepares for an assault on League One.

Wise’s side have been prevented from signing players due to the terms of the club’s administration and Bates believes potential targets have signed for rival clubs as a result.

He explained: “Dennis had a shopping list and one of the results of the delay — so thank you everyone who has given us grief — is that a number of players Dennis had lined up have now signed for other clubs because they didn’t have a job.

“They had mortgages to pay but they joined other clubs even though they wanted to come to Leeds.”

Bates refused to put a timescale on returning to the Premier League while Football League chiefs prepared for a meeting to decide whether they will even be allowed to kick-off against Tranmere on August 11.

However the Football League had warned KPMG that they would not allow Leeds to start life in League One if they were sold without a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) in place — and that uncertainty hangs over Elland Road.